


Paths Not Taken

by notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)



Series: Defined by Echo [4]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Horror, Implied animal/pet death (brief), Leitner Books (The Magnus Archives), Three Sentence Ficlets, canon-typical creepiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23643841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer
Summary: Thirteen Leitners Jonathan Sims never read.
Series: Defined by Echo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646350
Comments: 8
Kudos: 79





	Paths Not Taken

**Author's Note:**

> Had to resort to Google Translate for the Irish, so apologies if it got butchered. Inspiration for Ice Skating Adventures came from NOS4A2 by Joe Hill.   
> Thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I love hearing from y’all!

One:  _ Ex Altiora _

Jon was reading the book under the covers with his flashlight when the storm blew in. He was too entranced in the illustrations of a starless sky to notice when the lightning struck. 

The endless blue expanse above the remains of his grandmother’s home was as good a place as any for a boy with a Lichtenberg scar.

Two:  _ The Boneturner’s Tale _

Michael Crew left it on a table in the university library; Jon picked it up.

Three months later, as Georgie Barker told the police everything she knew, the book was embedded beneath Jon’s skin. 

(She’s still looking for the Admiral’s skull.)

Three:  _ The Book of the Dead _

As he had expected, Jonathan Sims died on October 17, 2010. Georgie Barker was called in to identify the corpse, but, even once she’d finished vomiting, couldn’t-- too many scattered pieces, you see-- so the coroner resorted to dental records.

Jon watched it all, vaguely amused.

Four:  _ The Stalwart Hunter’s Almanac _

Jon picked the book up in a thrift shop, thinking it might be some sort of field guide, and began screaming almost immediately.

It would have been better if he had died then. Better to be dead than to be the thing which survived, mutilated and mute, stalking the alleyways which the Stranger dared not lay claim to.

Five:  _ The Seven Lamps of Architecture _

By the time Jon looked up, the walls of the tunnel were inches from crushing him; he barely hesitated before continuing to read. 

Legend has it you can still see him on the Underground, reading the same book, standing in the same place, dirt cascading from under his shirt and crumbling out of his hair.

Legend has it that you better pray he keeps reading, because if he notices you, you’ll never see the sky again-- and you’ll never want to, either.

Six:  _ A Journal of the Plague Year _

The exterminators couldn’t touch the nest, so they left him alone in his infected flat and were glad to be gone. The book lay discarded and unnoticed on the coffee table, buzzing quietly.

Later, they couldn’t touch the Hive which had once been a man named Jonathan Sims, either.

Seven:  _ Móin Folamh _

Jon opened the book to see a pale watercolor of mists curling over a moor; the next page was the same, as was the next, and the next. He didn’t notice his limbs going translucent and grey, swirling like fog, as he continued through the book. 

The last page of  _ Móin Folamh  _ is slightly different from the others-- the moor has a person on the horizon, one whose silhouette is almost entirely obscured by the rising mists.

Eight:  _ The Last Days of the Punic Wars _

The dedication page read simply  _ salt and burn the earth. _

By the time Jon finished the slim novel, his apartment building had burned to the ground. It was nothing compared to the ruin he would bring to the rest of London. 

Nine:  _ A Lady’s Guide to Practical Disguises _

Amused, Jon opened the book, expecting old-fashioned beauty tips. 

Looking at itself in a splintering mirror, the thing which had once been Jonathan Sims did not,  _ could _ not, recognize itself. 

It tried to scream but succeeded only in emitting a dainty laugh like the shattering of crystal.

Ten:  _ Eclipse of Worlds _

The summary on the back read  _ Chronicles of the Spaceship Daedalus. _

Jon found it harder and harder to read the small print as the book went on. After he finished, Jon found it harder and harder to see anything outside of the shadows.

Eleven:  _ Oro de los Conquistadores _

Jon didn’t speak any Spanish, but that didn’t seem to matter to the book.

There were intricate woodcuts of atrocities at the beginning of every chapter. If Jon’s grandmother had paid more attention to what her grandson was reading, perhaps she wouldn’t have ended up as part of one.

Twelve:  _ Ice Skating Adventures _

The coloring book began ordinarily enough-- a princess had to ice skate her way across a frozen country to save her kingdom.

Once Jon began to look closer, though, he saw the faces under the icy lakes and the twisted bodies in the snowy trees; once he began to listen more closely to the sound of the pages turning, he heard the screams and the whispers.

Helen Richardson, queen of the frozen kingdom, her claws neatly hidden, waits for anyone who survives the ice skating adventure on the last page.

Thirteen:  _ Chernobyl _

The package it came in smelled of exhaust and desert dust. Jon opened the book and coughed as the scent of disinfectant rose from between the covers.

He barely felt the first of his teeth loosen and fall as he turned to the first page.


End file.
